Peace Through Strength and Quiet Diplomacy: Grand Strategy Lessons from the Reagan Administration

History remembers Ronald Reagan as the ultimate hard-liner, whose campaign of maximum pressure across domains brought down the Soviet Union. But there was more to the fortieth president’s approach to the Soviet Union than that: As much as he went on the offensive, he also advocated for sustained engagement with Soviet leaders. US foreign policy in the 1980s, thus, was every bit as much carrot as it was stick; and it offers a host of lessons about dealing with a resurgent and intransigent Russia today. This chapter will examine the core tenets of Reagan’s grand strategy, and what they — and their successes and failures—can tell us about the way forward in US foreign policy today.

Duke Scholars

Author Simon Miles Sanford School of Public Policy